By Carol Tobias, President
Editor’s note. This president’s column appears in the August digital edition of National Right to Life News. Please read the entire 42-page issue and pass it along using your social media contacts.
It’s already August. Congress is in recess, families are finishing vacations, getting kids ready for their return to school, and things have quieted down for just a short while. But if you’ve been watching the news, I don’t have to tell you that NRLC has been very busy in Washington over the past few months.
From the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court to passing state laws that protect unborn babies from brutal dismemberment abortions to the tenacious debate over how to rollback Obamacare, and how best to cut off funding to the nation’s largest abortion provider, your team at National Right to Life has been working overtime. Rest assured NRLC–which pro-life champion Rep. Chris Smith has described as the “hub, the nerve center, of the pro-life movement”–has been doing everything possible to advance the pro-life cause at each and every turn.
Let’s start with the Hill. NRLC’s legislative team has been meeting regularly – often several times a week – with key pro-life allies and leaders. We are there on your behalf to ensure that pro-life provisions and protections are part of any abortion-related legislation moving through Congress.
The chapter development and convention team outdid themselves. They organized and executed another amazing National Right to Life convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June–our 47th annual convention. There local and state right-to-life leaders and activists from all walks of life came together to learn from the experts we were blessed to have join us for this year’s convention. If you haven’t purchased MP3s or CDs of this very special time, please do so today. (Go to nrlconvention.com.)
The expertise on display was breathtaking. David Daleiden told of how his Center for Medical Progress exposed Planned Parenthood’s gruesome baby body part harvesting business (and how he has been harassed since); Ann McElhinney literally wrote the book (and produced the movie) on what really went on in abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors,” and shared how these projects came to fruition; and syndicated columnist and author Ben Shapiro displayed the qualities that make him such a formidable foe to those who lurk in the shadows of the culture of death.
Just last week college students from Nevada, Rhode Island, and South Carolina completed our 11th National Right to Life Academy. This 5-week course, taught by key leaders in the movement and the NRLC organization, sends these young leaders back to their states ready to make a difference.
We are very proud that college students who go through this very rigorous course are eligible to receive three credit hours from Franciscan University of Steubenville. The number of Academy graduates now actively working with their National Right to Life state affiliate is truly amazing (and energizing!) Start thinking now of a college student who may benefit from the program next year.
Dave Andrusko, editor of National Right to Life News, single-handedly produces, edits, and curates dozens of news stories every week that are posted daily at National Right to Life News Today.
The state legislative team continues to work in close harmony with our state affiliates to advance pro-life legislation. A recent triumph was when Texas became the 8th state in the nation to ban the gruesome abortion procedure that dismembers a living unborn baby limb-by-limb.
This summary does not even mention that already this year, there have been five special elections. The National Right to Life Victory Fund was heavily involved in all of them to encourage pro-life voters to get out to the polls.
In every one of those special elections, the pro-life candidate WON!
That’s only a small portion of what’s been going on at your National Right to Life headquarters – and much of it in just the past two months!
Where does our influence as the largest and most effective single issue pro-life organization come from? It comes from you– that army of volunteer grassroots activists, local chapters, and state affiliates. From members of Congress to state legislators across the country, all of them know that when they hear from National Right to Life, they’re hearing from a collective voice of the countless pro-lifers we’re here to represent.
It is because of your support through your donations, your prayers, and your activism that National Right to Life stands apart.
Be assured that we will keep fighting thoughtfully, strategically, and untiringly.
I consider it my highest honor to work with you and for you as we fight the abortion industry at every turn.
May God continue to richly bless you for everything you do on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our society.